Is Marseille's crime indomitable?
As the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, tightens the bolts of the fight against drugs, the settling of scores is increasing in the Phocaean City.
Already 15 people died in almost eight months in this ruthless war between thugs.
This is certainly not the record of 26 deaths in one year reached in 2016. But a few months before the presidential election, the trend is bad.
So bad that President Emmanuel Macron, who is due to visit Marseille on September 3 to discuss the development of the metropolis, will address security issues.
We have collected, it is true, in the Bouches-du-Rhône since January 1 as many notorious traffickers' corpses as in the whole of Île-de-France.
Knowing that about fifty victims of settling of scores have been listed in metropolitan France since the beginning of the year.
To read also
Banditry: the mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, asks for a "special prosecution"
Curiously, the police give the same answer when the vendetta turns to death: she sees it as a sign that it is deeply destabilizing the environment, according to her, and that the policy of
"harassment"
against trafficking is beginning to bear fruit. .
The host of Beauvau even spoke of
"victory"
to qualify this hard fight against the dealers, last August 16.
Telling his figures for France, he mentioned 8,000 traffickers arrested in the first half of the year, 57 tonnes of cannabis seized (+ 37% compared to 2020), and then, at the same time, almost 9 tonnes of cocaine intercepted (+ 91% ) and 52 million criminal assets seized (+ 53%).
"Everyone is against everyone"
But here it is: two days after this announcement, a 14-year-old teenager was killed with an assault rifle in the city of Marronniers, in the northern districts of Marseille, while two other minors aged 14 and 8 were injured.
And here are the bullets whistling again: last weekend, three men died, this time in the city of La Marine Bleue, in the 14th arrondissement of the city.
Two were executed by snipers arriving by car.
The third was forcibly taken into the vehicle.
His charred body was found in the trunk of the car.
Mobsters cynically call this a
"barbecue"
.
The man in the street wonders: what if the situation went from bad to worse, especially for the inhabitants of these districts set up as true Far West?
See also
In Marseille, gang wars against a background of drug trafficking
Rudy Manna, the departmental secretary of the Alliance union (the majority among officers and guards) is hardly optimistic.
“Before,” he says, “there were mainly conflicts between two neighborhoods. Now the war is being played out between eight to ten cities. Everyone is against everyone. ”
There are no longer any real gang leaders, as in the days of Francis le Belge or Farid Berrahma, known as
"the Rôtisseur"
. The environment has become balkanized, drugs are arousing ever more ferocious appetites and weapons are circulating everywhere, weapons of war as well as ordinary weapons.
“In the city center, not a sector is controlled without at least one knife being seized on someone,”
says Rudy Manna.
"We are talking about the dead, but we are not talking about the countless injured in this conflict, at least sixty since the start of the year, by gunshot or knife,"
adds a police officer from the southern districts of Marseille. To hear him, police harassing traffickers will not be enough if justice does not follow. However, he says:
“If the prosecution strongly supports police action, the decisions of the magistrates of the bench are not always legible. They are dealing, it is true, with formidable lawyers that only big thugs enriched by trafficking can afford. One of them even became Keeper of the Seals… ”
Marseille: a 17-year-old girl "collateral victim" of a shooting - Watch on Figaro Live
The lookouts of yesterday who have become the bosses of today
Now a security consultant, Gilles Leclair, former police chief of Marseille, says he is struck by the youth of the new drug soldiers. Because yesterday's lookouts have become today's bosses. An evolution that is reminiscent of this former boss of the Office of Narcotics of Brazil and Colombia where gangs of kids from 10 to 12 years old, armed to the teeth, ended up making the law in certain sectors.
"We're getting there
,
"
fears this ex-grand cop.
"The PJ should not be overwhelmed by numbers,"
he warns. To hear it, we must go further in the repression, and above all, not to give in by legalizing cannabis:
"It would be the worst response and a worrying signal in terms of health
.
"
Read also
Banditry: when Marseille reconnects with its old demons
This Monday, on Franceinfo, the PS mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, said he was in favor, for his part, to the legalization of cannabis to stem trafficking.
He also called for the creation of a special anti-drug prosecution.
But it is not at the level of the parquet floor that the shoe pinches.
Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti will be in Marseille this Tuesday to promote his reform of juvenile justice.
A plea that promises to be delicate, given the context.
"There is a victory for the national police against drugs," says Gérald Darmanin - Watch on Figaro Live
